Friday, December 28, 2012

2012 is ending on a tasty and colorful note thanks to Bread Baking Day #55. This month's hostess, Katha, chose Colored Bread as the theme.

Making this bread was my Christmas day project. I chose a braided egg bread from the Red Star Yeast website, and added coloring to each of the three pieces. While I had wanted to use holiday colors (red and green), I was, alas, out of red coloring, so I used what I had available.

In this case, it was green, yellow, and violet. King Cake colors. Guess I'm ahead of the game here. ;)

Regardless of the colors, this bread turned out great. Besides tasting delicious, it's fun to see what patterns each slice has, and it's very tempting to just keep slicing.

Thanks to Katha for her choice of theme, and thanks to Zorra for creating such a delightful bread baking event. I'm looking forward to the challenges of 2013.

The roundup will be available after the first of the year at Katha's website.

Sunday, December 23, 2012

I am finally emerging from an extreme workload overload. On Friday I sent off the last of three multi-year projects, and my brain is ready for some R&R (aka bread baking therapy). I promised myself I would take off two days before the end of the year -- my birthday and Christmas. One down, one to go.

Saturday, I tackled the bread project from the Bread Baking Babes, Holiday Apple Kuchen, this month hosted by Gretchen Noelle of Provecho Peru. I've nearly forgotten what free time feels like, so this recipe was a great re-start recipe.

I used a combination of Fuji and Granny Smith apples, and for the spice blend, I mixed cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, cloves, allspice, and cardamom. This spice combo is one of my favorites. I make streusel toppings frequently, so this was an easy step.

Overall, the bread turned out fine. It was difficult to tell since the dough was buried under the apple and streusel mixtures.

I omitted the topping, but only out of sheer laziness, since I just wanted to eat the end-product without a lot of extra fuss.

It still tastes delicious this morning, and because the sun is out briefly, I improved on the 'slice' photo.

To try your hand it this, head over to Gretchen Noelle's blog for the recipe and the links to the other Babes' blogs.